Thomas R. Hietala

A look at race relations in theUS during the first half of the 20th century, through the first two African-American heavyweight boxing champions, Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. Using the Black press of the time, the author explores how their public careers and private lives define and explain national issues from the early 1900s to the late 1940s.

Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality

The Fight of the Century

Praise for the earlier edition— "A fascinating, thought-provoking book. . . . Hietala shows that it was not destiny but design and aggression that enabled the United States to control Texas, New Mexico, and California."—Historian "Hietala has examined an impressive array of primary and secondary materials. . . . His handling of the relationship between the domestic and foreign policies of the decade shatters some myths about America's so-called manifest destiny and deserves the attention of all scholars and serious students of the period."—Western Historical Quarterly Since 1845, the phrase "manifest destiny" has offered a simple and appealing explanation of the dramatic expansionism of the United States. In this incisive book, Thomas R. Hietala reassesses the complex factors behind American policymaking during the late Jacksonian era. Hietala argues that the quest for territorial and commercial gains was based more on a desire for increased national stability than on any response to demands by individual pioneers or threats from abroad.

American Exceptionalism and Empire

Manifest Design

This is a revealing look at the history of race relations in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century portrayed through the lives and times of the first two African-American heavyweight boxing champions, Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. Incorporating extensive research into the black press of the time, the author explores how the public careers and private lives of these two sports figures both define and explain vital national issues from the early 1900s to the late 1940s.

Fight of the Century

Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America

John M. Belohlavek

Robert Walter Johannsen

Christopher M. Morris

Sam W. Haynes

Six scholars consider important aspects of American antebellum expansion in these studies based on talks originally prepared for the Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures. Robert W. Johannsen of the University of Illinois at Urbana offers fresh insight into the meaning of the term "manifest destiny," arguing for a broader definition. John M. Belohlavek of the University of South Florida takes a close look at the expansionist attitudes of Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts politician, diplomat, reformer, and intellectual. Cushing's life and controversial career, Belohlavek argues, mirror a young republic as it began to transform itself from "union" to "nation." Thomas R. Hietala of Grinnell College examines the complicated clash of culturesthe result of Manifest Destinyand how it was viewed by observant individuals such as George Catlin, a painter who traveled and lived among Native Americans just prior to the expansionist surge of the 1840s and who opposed the destruction of Native Americans in the wake of the Anglo westward movement. Winner of the Webb essay competition for 1996, Samuel J. Watson of Rice University studies U.S. Army officers' responses to territorial expansionism between 1815 and 1846. He argues that officers' views on Manifest Destiny were far more nuanced than conventional models of romantic nationalism suggest. Sam W. Haynes uncovers the social and political complexities, including a widespread fear of Great Britain, that made Texas' annexation the most divisive issue of its day. Robert E. May of Purdue University offers a compelling examination of American filibustering during the Manifest Destiny era.

Thomas R. Hietala

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